Note: Please excuse the bad Engrish in the dialogue -- I'm a Malaysian and I hope to portray characters' interaction as realistically as possible. In fact, I plan to have characters speak in multiple languages in one sitting, because that is how we Malaysians communicate IRL anyway.
Translations:
Hannah - Similar in tone to "I've got it already, jeez!"
Liao - A Chinese (not sure of its origin, but probably Mandarin) word, usually used at the end of the sentence to indicate "already"
Jie - Mandarin for sister (姐)
Kastam - Malay for "customs"
Yaloh - Similar in tone to "I know, right?"
Angmoh - Hokkien for "red hair", which is a (sometimes, but not always derogatory) slang we use to refer to Caucasians. We also sometimes use the more tame slang "mat salleh", but that is a Malay word that Chinese-speakers normally don't use.
Prologue scene
...
* Ring... Ring...
* Ring... Ring...
Ugh, I really need to change the ringtone soon. I reach for my phone, flip it face up, and punch the home button. The head splitting abomination ceases, but my ears continue ringing briefly. My mind awakens almost immediately. My eyes sparkle open.
"First day of school!"
I can't wait to enter the Science Stream. I'll be in the same class as Yun, finally! After 2 years of being in different classes... I can finally sit next to him again.
"Yen, faster wake up, okay? Mummy's going to work now."
Mom stands at the doorway, hands on the door's knob. She's holding a lot of files, with her bag hanging over her right shoulder. "Enn, I'm awake."
# Self-note: Multiple-choice dialogue to gauge relationship between Yen and Mummy
"Don't forget to wake your Wen up okay? I'm going now."
"Enn, got it."
"And don't forget to close the lights and lock the front door and gate when you go out."
"Ennnn, I got it already."
"Don't forget the bus arrives at 6.30AM so be sure to wait at the porch before then."
"Ya, I know."
"It's your first day back to school so don't make a bad impression okay?"
"Hannah! I know already! I thought you're going to work liao?"
"Okay, okay. Don't forget to call me when you come back from school later, okay?"
"..."
Mummy never tires with her nagging. I can almost recite all the things she say every morning, since that's what I've been hearing since I started schooling. Ah, I can hear the door and keys. Mummy's left. Finally, some peace and quiet. And then... I get to see Yun! Feeling a little bubbly, I jump out from bed and jog to Wen's room.
"Wen, time to wake up!" I open and and knock on the wooden, hollow door. Wen immediately wakes up with a soft grunt, then scuttled out of his bed and into the kitchen with me.
Thankfully, Wen is fairly timid and obedient, for a boy his age. Never threw tantrums, never misbehaved, and always patiently listened to mummy. I, on the other hand... Oh whelp! Her nagging is annoying anyway.
Despite a long two months of holiday, we execute our routine like a habit; We blaze through breakfast. Then we take turns showering. We carefully lock the house door and gate as we left, take the elevator to the ground floor, and march to the designated area where our school bus typically arrives.
# Self-note: Multiple-choice dialogue to gauge relationship between Yen and Wen.
"Jie, did you read Facebook news recently?"
"Yea?"
"Some crazy stuff happened at the airport."
"Oh yea I saw. Some American started going crazy at the kastam and started biting the officers."
"I saw the video, it was quite ... scary..."
"You mean brutal? Yea, it was pretty gory. Already that angmoh is quite big-sized, they couldn't even pin him down with 5 people."
"A-and, the angmoh looked like he wanted to eat everyone..."
"Yaloh. Probably some mad cow disease? But hmm, I thought they wouldn't allow sick people on the plane..."
"Ah, bus is here."
I tuck away the airport news to the back of my head almost immediately. There are so many crazy stuff going on in the world today, I've gotten a little desensitised by it now. But somehow... almost intuitively, I have this weird feeling that this incident is going to be important.